The best 'Big Brother' movies

June 14, 2013 |Sam Rolens and Moa Karnstrand

The latest NSA scandal is nothing compared to these Hollywood 'Big Brother' films.

Ho/REUTERS

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A lot of us, recently, have been thinking about Big Brother. With the reveal of NSA surveillance policies raising a lot of citizens’ private eyebrows, something interesting is happening. Not only is surveillance the topic-du-jour for comedy—trending on Twitter were titles for surveillance state rewrites of children’s books like Charlotte’s Web-Cam and To Think I Surveilled It On Mulberry Street—but book sellers have seen a reportedly huge spike in sales of George Orwell’s classic "1984."

On Amazon, sales of the dystopian novel jumped 6,021 percent in 24 hours on Tuesday. But while Orwell’s tale might be the most iconic, we’ve been producing stories of runaway surveillance, dystopian futures and fanatical social control for a century. And lately, we can’t stop thinking about them.

So if the state of our state has you looking over our shoulder, this probably won’t help your nerves: a list of the best and creepiest movies about government intrusion and control.

Enemy of the State

It’s Will Smith vs—guess who?—the NSA in this thriller about the assassination of a Congressman. In a power-gone-to-their-heads worst case scenario, the Congressman gets whacked by rogue NSA members for vocally opposing a bill that would expand the surveillance powers of the NSA. The tagline for the film warns: “It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you.”

Ho/REUTERS

1of18

A lot of us, recently, have been thinking about Big Brother. With the reveal of NSA surveillance policies raising a lot of citizens’ private eyebrows, something interesting is happening. Not only is surveillance the topic-du-jour for comedy—trending on Twitter were titles for surveillance state rewrites of children’s books like Charlotte’s Web-Cam and To Think I Surveilled It On Mulberry Street—but book sellers have seen a reportedly huge spike in sales of George Orwell’s classic "1984."

On Amazon, sales of the dystopian novel jumped 6,021 percent in 24 hours on Tuesday. But while Orwell’s tale might be the most iconic, we’ve been producing stories of runaway surveillance, dystopian futures and fanatical social control for a century. And lately, we can’t stop thinking about them.

So if the state of our state has you looking over our shoulder, this probably won’t help your nerves: a list of the best and creepiest movies about government intrusion and control.

Enemy of the State

It’s Will Smith vs—guess who?—the NSA in this thriller about the assassination of a Congressman. In a power-gone-to-their-heads worst case scenario, the Congressman gets whacked by rogue NSA members for vocally opposing a bill that would expand the surveillance powers of the NSA. The tagline for the film warns: “It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you.”